ReverendSin

I know its unconventional but since I respecc'd to Affliction I've always PVP'd with my imp, I dont know why but it seems to work best for me. Silence is nice, devour magic is nice, I used to PVP with nothing BUT the felhunter (Until 2.0 basically). So I've spent the last 7 months or so PVP'ing with nothing but my imp, its nice to ignore him and use him as a mana battery.

Now, in my 5v5 we have a Paladin-Druid team and a Shaman-Priest team with 2 MS warriors, 2 3m Mages a SL Warlock and an Affliction warlock (me). Our "A" team had a 90% win ratio when I was using my imp because I could just ignore him and focus on our primary target and CC. All was going well and we gained about 300 rating in our first two weeks. So I changed my spec a tiny bit to pick up Shadowburn and Bane (was 41/15/5 for extra 6% healing received and 30 dmg, am now 43/7/11 for more raid DPS/Shadowburn) and decided I'd try to use my Felhunter again.

Big mistake. I felt spread too thin, I'd even spent the last week in AV roughly 16 hours a day when I wasn't raiding working on getting used to PVP'ing with my felhunter again. It wasn't working for me, I felt spread too thin, my pet gets CC'd and if I try to Dark Pact him in long fights he's useless for silence/remove magic. I figured oh well, I'll try it anyway in the Arena. Big mistake, again he was AoE Feared, killed, banished frequently and it left me feeling spread too thin again, I couldn't focus and concentrate. The result? 5 losses in a row. I can't figure out why, but it seems to me that when I'm trying to focus on what my pet is doing (or not doing) I'm not spending enough time focusing on what I should be doing. I've become so used to ignoring my imp and using him for long drawn out battles that now those same long battles see me dead way too fast with very little accomplished.

 

• probiscus

Are you seeking advice?

As far as having to pay attention to what your pet is doing, it's kind of one of those things I picked up in leveling my warlock to 70, getting exalted w/ 2 battlegrounds and dueling many a people in front of org/IF.

The only piece of advice that I can give as far as pet control goes, is what has worked well for me. I use a gaming mouse and have assigned any pet actions that are on a separate GCD to the mouse binds - inclusive of CTRL SHIFT & ALT functionality. Between those, and the pretty cool pet macro's (including focus targeting) that have come out, your pet can almost function as another player. The downside to that, is if you're going to become that reliant on your pet, 1) your healers need to be aware that he's that important and 2) you need to be situationally aware enough to protect him from the banish, or be ready on the sac / insta-summon should you be spec'd that way and the situation require it.

 

obsolete

you simply need to spend more time learning to micro the felhunter. A well timed spelllock can make or break a game... much more so then a stamina boost. Devour is also handy... if its hard for you to micro it, just chuck it on auto-cast.

With respect to dark pact... although it saves your hp, you should get used to using life tap. Especially so if your affliction and are lucky enough not to get assist trained. Siphon life easily heals up the hp you lose from using life tap.

Oh also, as insignificant it can be, your felhunter can still auto-attack for around 200-300 white damage per hit. Not much but it adds up.

 

Bibdy

Nobody goes out of their way to Banish a Voidwalker most of the time. It can be used to interrupt people, kill totems, it acts as a nice, big mana reserve (its not like he needs it for anything), it can give you a 4k hp shield (with the talent) and suffering his a nice new debuff that might just save your life.

There's always free cheese in the mouse traps, but the mice there ain't happy.

 

ReverendSin

I was hardcore demonology for 2 years until 2.0 came out but I seem to have lost my ability to micro manage my pet somewhere in the last 7 months of not using it. From 60-70 I used nothing but my Imp, then levelled 2 more 70's (rogue/BE Paladin) and then went back to my warlock. I'm probably going to stick with it but I seem to die a lot faster/more often than I did with my imp and I can't figure out why. It doesn't make any logical sense. I spent the greater part of my time pre-TBC on my warlock PVP'ing (until my rogue hit 60) with my felhunter, then from 2.0 release to TBC release back PVP'ing 16 hours+ a day with my warlock-Felhunter. But from January to present I haven't had him out for more than a few seconds.

Wait what?

 

obsolete

aoe debuff which puts -10% hit on the target.

 

• probiscus

That's just weird then.

Though, I'm really not the guy to give advice about having to re-learn pet control - I respec probably 2-3x per month, always end up coming back to demonology. As much as people talk trash on the felguard, I really appreciate the ease of grinding, soloability, and controlled stuns you get w/ the pet.

Of note, learning to play w/ the felguard has taught me a lot better control of all the other pets. For example, previously I'd never bothered to bind "pet stay" and "pet attack", let alone aggressive, defensive or any of that other stuff. I just kinda stuck felhunter on priests and let him eat their buffs, and keep them crapping their pants about when I was going to blow a spell lock. However with all the added controls bound, I can have him attacking a mage (say), devouring off one target (or me) and spell locking another. It's pretty ridiculous what a well-played pet can do - as I'm sure you're aware.

More duels will probably be the best advice you'll get for the time being.

 

Vazu

Funny, if I see a VW, the first thing I do is banish it so my Warrior (3v3s) can take a steamy dump on the Warlock. The only pet I really don't bother banishing are Felhunters for obvious reasons. Waste of time.

 

ReverendSin

We did much better tonight, 5-0, kept my Felhunter out and just did the Set It and Forget It and then did what I normally did, I still think its mostly not worth it as he was banished a few times and usually ended up dead (especially if theres a hunter mage or warrior in the group, hunter always seems to target it, mages AOE kills it and warrior Whirlwind spam kills it) but it did harass the casters I put it on and silenced them quite a few times even when he was killed.

 

Vazu

First of all, I'm a SL (24/37/0) Warlock. So take this with that in mind.

1. My pet always goes on one of their healers to minimize damage from Warriors/Rogues and their blender abilities.

2. Felhunters keep themselves up (if the team doesn't blow it up) much better and generally gives healers a little more space. I'll usually start with a FH and then FD summon a VW if the pup dies.

 

waar

If your pet is dying too much try keeping him on passive and just having him follow you around. Definitely do not set Spell Lock and Devour Magic to "set it and forget it" (auto-cast?), that's wasting two amazing abilities. Use those two abilities like they're your own character's abilities but it just so happens that you can use them while casting other spells. Once you get comfortable with this then try throwing your pet out on enemy casters that can't be polymorphed, cycloned, or feared. It's good for the push back on their spells. However the pet staying alive so you can use its abilities is much more important than push back - which isn't needed anyway because you have a lot of crowd control in your group.

Between keeping fears up, keeping Curse of Tongues up, dispelling your party, spell locking, and trying to throw in some damage between all of these jobs Warlocks are one of the toughest classes to play - but in the end it is very rewarding.

 

◊ Praetorian

Personally, I hate spell lock, and we generally burst down felhunters right away when we see them. It takes five seconds, and we're a healer-heavy endurance team that's built for long matches, so a few seconds at the start to take care of pets (hunter scorpid, etc.) is always well worth it in my eyes.

Against my team (admittedly not a true "top" team, but hovering around 2100ish which is at least respectable given that we all PvP with our raiding specs), an imp would get ignored and actually be able to contribute for the full duration of the fight, whereas a felhunter would be dead.

 

AndrewCarr

Sort of how I see it too. Even in 2v2's I burst down felhunters immediately. My scorpid gets focus fired nearly as often. If something is so good that it's going to completely change the match, and thus is removed in the first few seconds, then it ends up actually being useless(unless the 3-5s of distraction are a key strat of your's).

I guess it's backwards thinking, since felhunters are clearly superior pets than imps, but only if they stay alive. This can usually be solved in 2v2 and 3v3's by healers simply not being lazy about pets and healing them, but I imagine that in 5v5's the burst dps is just too much.

 

wow

It's really not hard to keep a felhunter up long enough to make attacking it a bad idea. If the healers are quick to notice what you're trying to do it can quickly mean you've wasted alot of dps while the other team is already working on you.

http://ctprofiles.net/95562

 

ReverendSin

Ahh, I forgot to mention the spell lock and devour magic were not on auto cast, I use that to dispel sheep/fear from my paladin or other group mates if I can move fast enough, I usually set him to target someone like a shaman or priest, they tend to get nervous if he's even close to them.

One amusing note was last night we were having a bit of fun and ended up fighting a Horde team in Blades Edge, they tried to rush us via mounts but before they even dismounted I popped an InstaHoT. At the end of the match they were ALL dead in a very small pile on the bridge with the exception of the paladin who refused concede to our request so that we could take a screenshot. (He bubbled and ran back to the starting area to die). The next game we got them again and after smashing his team we decided to mana drain and wand the paladin to death while he spammed profanities at us. I still have no clue why he didn't just /afk or bubble or something but we wanded away about 10k health before the mage got impatient and fireblasted him.

 

Bibdy

Its only got about 5k hp, though. A caster-heavy team will have trouble, but a couple of physical DPS will have no problem.

There's always free cheese in the mouse traps, but the mice there ain't happy.

 

◊ Praetorian

Yeah, my team is war/war/sham/dru/pal, and two warriors with WF down can generally kill a felhunter before anyone can react. I can't remember ever having them actually heal it to the point where it stayed alive for an appreciable amount of time.

 

• Lanky

That team make up is good, but I am assuming if you see the mana drain team set (Priest, Paladin, Hunter, Warrior, Shaman) or the AOE team set (Mage, Warlock, Paladin, Priest, Paladin) you go man to man? Only reason I ask is that we ran a 2 warrior team previously, and although we had less overall heals than your team, we still found we could not out dps / focus well timed BoPs and whatnot.


EDIT: To actually contribute for the OP:
Try some SHIFT + mouse wheel commands bound for your felhunter, SHIFT + mwhl_up for spell-lock and down for devour. I used those two commands, modded by macros for all my pets, until I stopped playing my lock.

 

ReverendSin

Also, since the discussion is starting to peter out, what kill order do you guys use in the Arena? I've heard some of you say in threads here that you kill DPS first? My team Has 2 MS Warriors, 2 PoM Fire Mages, a SL Warlock (20/30/11 I think), an Affliction Lock (Me), and a Paladin-Druid healing team and a Shaman-Priest healing team.

I'm almost always the first targeted if not the mage, my healers are almost never targeted. And on that note I seem to notice that the teams we face RARELY focus fire on me, sometimes I've got a warrior on my ass like a hemorrhoid, sometimes a rogue joins him, but never all of them at once. Sometimes they attack the mage, even when he doesn't have any mana. Very, very rarely the druid and almost never the warrior.

We on the other hand target squishy healer first or squishy DPS first, but generally follow Priest, Mage, Shaman, Druid, Warlock, Hunter, Rogue, Warrior, Paladin guidelines. We seem to have a bit of trouble with 3 healer teams but we've got a good amount of CC so it doesn't always end bad for us, our paladin is a remarkeably amazing PVP healer and the druid backing him up w/Cyclone on the side is really nice.

Any particular method to beating melee heavy or heal heavy teams? Usually we can get a healer down in the first 10 seconds or so of the game via CC and heal through DPS, after that it's just "Kill the healer or squishy DPS ASAP".

Edit: Oh, and we're generally fucked when a shaman is present, until lately my team has been really impatient and wanted to charge them but after some really, really bad losses to teams with ratings several hundred below ours we've held back and made them play on our terms instead of the other way around.

 

obsolete

If your healers are aware of the pets health i find that a team attacking your felhunter is nothing but a huge advantage to your team.

a) they waste time focusing on the pet rather then you guys.
b) tainted blood equates to about -500AP? on each of the melee attacking it. Slap on CoW ontop of that and they will have close to -900AP for a period of time.
c) your not demonology, but a demo specced locks felhunter has like 7k+ hp, -15% damage from talents, and about 250 resistance to all forms of magic. So casters will have a hard time killing it too if its being healed.
d) again only if your demo, you can FD summon another one instantly, which leads back to point (a).

 

Darkmantle

My felhunter generally has 10k buffed hp in arena with 210 resist all 280 shadow resist 30-35% armor reduction and -15% less damage from demonic resilience. I've had games were at the end our paladin will say "they were going after your felhunter a lot" but I never noticed because we were just eating the other team.

I would never use imp. The stamina would be nice but the huge advantages of a 3rd defensive dispel on our team are enormous, I have won games with a devoured polymorph when it was down to 4v4. Not to mention versus a 2 healer team a fear, CS, Fear, Spell lock chain can be devastating and game winning.

 

Vazu

..yeah, I'm really not sure what kind of Felhunters people have. I'm not saying you won't destroy a SL Warlock's Felpup, but it's not gunna be 2-3 seconds, I can promise you that. In the time it takes you to kill that pet, I'm free to do whatever I want. I think alot of teams are coming up against UA Warlock pets, which are stupid easy to kill. Like the guy above said, my Felhunter (arena buffed) has ~ 10,000 HP, 4500ish armor (I think) and -15% damage taken from Demonic Resilience. That's at least mail quality armor. It's like trying to assist down Hunter quality armor mitigation. Big waste of time. I've seen teams try it in my 3v3 and spend precious seconds on it while we do whatever we want to them.

I guess it just depends. If I knew the Warlock was UA.

 

◊ Turik

The way I look at it, Arena is so unpredictable that any time you can force your enemy to do something, it's a huge plus.


Forcing them to FF that felhunter down for 5 seconds, is a major plus to me.

 

◊ Shadowed

Not sure how you'd plan on killing the pet with the Warlock being able to fear and do whatever he wants too you, along with the healer being able to heal it....unless you do something stupid like sending your pet in and they stun/kill it, I don't find it worth the time trying to burn them down, unless it's a succubus.

 

ReverendSin